TORRINGTON: It was only about 43 minutes of work but it was really good work.

Quality of quantity, always a good thing.

The Torrington girls volleyball team played one of their three scheduled out of conference games against a team from Norwalk that took longer to get to Torrington than it did to playing a Raiders team that is starting to find their stride.

A three-game sweep with scores of 25-11, 25-17 and 25-14 that never saw the home team trail a point all night highlighted the dominance of a team that moves out to a 7-1 mark.

The Naugatuck Valley League is shaping up to be a four team race at the moment with Seymour outclassing everybody at the moment with eight up and eight down to date.

Woodland, who handed the Raiders their only loss of the year so far, a 3-2 decision on Friday, September 25, has also yet to drop a match and has disposed of six straight foes.

The Raiders are right there with their 7-1 mark followed by Oxford at 6-2 but it may be the Torrington out of conference battles that may be the most valuable as the team looks to play higher talent on a more regular basis, leading them up to the all-important State Tournament.

Aside from Norwalk, who are a young team playing in a tough conference in Fairfield County, the Raiders face off against defending Class M State Champion, Granby Memorial on Monday, October 19 in the Connie Donahue Gymnasium at 6 p.m.

Granby stands at 7-0 and has lost just five games in those wins.

“This will be our third year playing them,” head coach Christine Gamari said, “A couple of years ago, we stole a Senior Night win for ourselves. We are definitely challenging ourselves with the State Tournament in mind.”

Torrington will play Bristol Central in their last game of the regular season on October 28 with the NVL Tournament and States to follow.

The teams are no strangers to each other.

“Bristol Central has been on our schedule since we lost then in the State Tournament during my first year,” Gamari said, “I saw them I liked how they played and I knew they were a team we could see in the State Tournament. So they are really a State Tournament prep team for us. This will be our fourth year playing them.”

It cannot surprise anyone that the former Raiders volleyball star-turned coach would want to fill her slate with high level competition, truly preparing them for the rigors of the post season.

Gamari hates to lose and wants her teams to have every advantage when it counts.

On Wednesday night if you had left coffee in your car it would have still been hot when the Raiders got done with their work for the night.

Game one saw them blast out to a 17-2 lead on the way to a 25-11 final.

Game two was more competitive as the visitors hung around and pulled even for the only time all night at 11 all before a senior and a junior took care of that in a big hurry.

Caitlyn Cornish, the lone senior and co-captain, went on a personal 3-0 run with three straight message sending kills.

Junior co-captain Carissa Carbone put her mark on the 6-0 run with a decisive and loud kill of her own and any thought of a Norwalk comeback was snuffed out in a hurry.

“Both my captains have great leadership skills,” Gamari said, “They’re smart players, they’ve been varsity players for several years now and they know what I expect and what needs to happen in order for us to win. I rely on them, especially in close matches.”

The Raiders travel to Kennedy (2-5) before returning to the Connie Donahue on Tuesday for a meeting with Wolcott.

Friday, October 9 will be a big night for Torrington when they travel south to take on Seymour in what is always an entertaining match up.